Asthmatic Kitty Records: Helado Negro

The New Yorker Recommends This Weekend�s Helado Negro Show

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Helado Negro is opening for Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt (of The Sea and Cake) at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan this Saturday June 30, and the New Yorker says you should go:

The mesmerizing act on this bill is Helado Negro, which is one of the stage names of the Florida-born, Brooklyn-based sound artist Roberto Carlos Lange. As Helado Negro, he makes atmospheric songs that take their own weirdness in stride: think a Latin version of freak folk.

Expect tracks from the Brooklyn-based experimental electropop artist’s complete catalog, including the recent “Island Universe Story One” EP. Doors open at 7:30, and tickets are ten bucks. Click here to purchase.

NEW EP FROM HELADO NEGRO

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Photo by Angel Ceballos

Roberto Lange of Helado Negro loves to explore. And it is his intrinsic sense of discovery that transforms the traditional structures of pop music into a celestial playground. Because his energy and enthusiasm is hard to restrain within the recommended release schedule, we have decided to forgo with conventional wisdom and follow Helado Negro through the extensive galactic archipelago, losing ourselves amongst the many islands that orbit the brain of Lange and his many collaborators.

Today we are excited to be releasing Island Universe Story One, the first in what he promises as an infinite series of chapters in this musical journey. The result of experimentation with a Scully 280 ¼” tape machine and the Teenage Engineering OP-1, the first island is a collection of tape loops and edits. It is a deep breakfast buffet of star paste and quabbernautic brunchings. Listen and take part by purchasing below, or read more here.

The music is visually represented by the micro-maximalist art of Kristi Sword and succinct design of Mexico City’s NRML.

And don’t miss Helado Negro at the Bowery this Friday night, when he plays with Matthew Dear and Blondes. Buy tickets here.

YEARLY ROUND-UP: HELADO NEGRO

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0500

We’re going back over our releases on the cusp of 2012 and trying to clump together a whole year’s worth of happenings into one post. Here's the one on Helado Negro's Canta Lechuza.

We released Helado Negro’s Canta Lechuza in May. Roberto Carlos Lange - the brain and brawn behind Helado Negro - is one of the most prolific musicians on Asthmatic Kitty. In person, he’s calm, cool, sublime, but if you were to judge him by his work output you’d think he were a hermit, a workaholic, holing up 24 hours a day to make music. It’s hard to tell just how he pulls it all off. But he does.

Canta Lechuza, though just Helado Negro’s second release, is Roberto’s nth release. Honestly, we stopped counting. Sometimes quality is inversely related to quality, but this is definitely not the case for Roberto. This record sounds mature and refined. It’s Roberto discovering the identity of Helado Negro and then skirting over it, flirting with it, turning it over like a Rubick’s Cube. It’s Roberto confident in his voice, in its limitations and range. Canta Lechuza retains the playfulness of Awe Owe, but is less sweaty-summer/cold beer, more black tea on woodburning stove. And gone is the more obvious Latino framework of Awe Owe. What it lacks in that immediate worldliness, it makes up for with subtle confidence. That makes it a little less immediately approachable at first, but any amount of digging rewards listeners with a song like “2º Dia” - an expertly written song, hypnotic and evocative of the best of the 80s: the sound exploration of David Sylvian, or Peter Gabriel’s flirtations with Latino and African music. In July, a little late to the party, Synconation rightly called the song “a study in the power of restraint within music.” So true.

Most records have short shelf-lives these days. But after an initial lifespan here in the States, Canta Lechuza spread wings and flew south for the winter and is enjoying something of a re-discovery in Mexico and Latin America. Back in August, Club Fonograma reviewed the album and loved it, calling it an album “that is simply beyond our time.” The record is #12 in Panamerika’s best of 2011, and “Lechuguilla” is one of their favorite tracks. Helado Negro is one of NPR Alt.Latino’s favorite artists this year. And Wax Poetics has a great video feature on Helado Negro, exploring his characteristic synthesis of Latino music and electronic beatmaking.

Roberto took a bit of flack for holing up in a cabin to make Canta Lechuza because another slightly better selling cabin-made album made cabins a cliché, but honestly, Roberto is about as urban as they come. He lives in the heart of Brooklyn and he absorbs all its stories. He hears them, and then they live in him, in his beard, in his belly, in his brain. Sit with him long enough and you’ve heard stories so well-told you’ll share them too, which means they’re not only good, and funny, but that Roberto has endowed them with meaning and morality that speaks to your soul. He’s good at this because he has a keen ear. The best musicians do; they don’t just make music, they don’t just produce objects for us to consume. They hear the world in its sprawling chaos and then output it in a more organized form for the rest of us. We call that music. And this is what Helado Negro has done with Canta Lechuza: he’s made music.

Canta Lechuza currently on sale for $4.99 on Amazon. Backstory on the record is here.

VIDEOS
LandroMatinee Sessions
Live at Union Pool, created by William “Zoe” Fitzgerald
Sing Owl
“2º Dia” Directed by Santa Maria
“Regresa” Directed by Gus Gavino
“Obra Uno” Animated by Gala Bent

INTERVIEWS
Kill Screen, by Filipe Salgado

Buy:
iTunes | Amazon | Bandcamp | CD | LP | Apparel

Stream:
Bandcamp | Spotify

&lt;a href="http://heladonegro.bandcamp.com/album/lechuzita" _cke_saved_href="http://heladonegro.bandcamp.com/album/lechuzita"&gt;Lechuzita by Helado Negro&lt;/a&gt;

HELADO NEGRO PLAYING IN MEXICO

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Helado Negro is currently undergoing a short but sweet minitour of Mexico. Last week he played at Festival Norte Sonoro en Monterrey, alongside DJ Rupture, White Rainbow, Grupo Esencias, and many others. You can see the tour poster and more info on that here.

If you missed him, you can catch Helado Negro this Friday, the 25th. He’ll be playing in Cuauhtémoc, Mexico at Caradura, as part of Nuestras Noches de Arts & Crafts México. More details are here.

For those of you that are in Mexico, make sure you run by Starbucks. You might able to pick up a free track courtesy of iTunes (see here for example).

REGRESA IS A LOVE STORY [VIDEO]

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

"Regresa" by Helado Negro as directed by Gus Gavino.

Buy Canta Lechuza here.

OBRA UNO AS SEEN BY THE GALA BENT

Sat, 28 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

"Obra Uno," from Canta Lechuza by Helado Negro, as perceived by the ever perceptive Seattle artist Gala Bent.

2� DIA VIDEO

Thu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Beautiful and spacious, "2º Dia" is directed by Santa Maria and we've been watching it over and over again. Alternate ASCII version, courtesy of ASCIIMO, here.

WEAR THE OWL

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Since we released Canta Lechuza from Helado Negro last week, we've received questions from all over the world inquiring about the owl on the artwork. The owl. Elementary school teacher Clarisa Uton from Idaho wrote in, "Dear AK, Canta Lechuza is a lovely album, but why is Roberto [of Helado Negro] taking a bath with the owl? Is that what the kids are doing these days?" And Paul Frank, a tea-shop proprietor asked, "I'm curious about the owl. How could I not be? Clearly, it represents something important. A totem perhaps? But what does it mean? My wife thinks it's meaningless, but I feel it has some importance. Please settle this debate between my life partner and me."

We're afraid, Clarisa and Paul and world, that we cannot answer those questions or settle any debates. To do so would mean delving deep into the layered mind of Roberto Carlos Lange (aka Helado Negro), a feat we dare not attempt for fear of never returning.

But what we can do is offer an opportunity to wear the owl. Longtime Roberto collaborator David Ellis has designed a gorgeous and minimalistic take on The Owl, which you can see in greater detail here. It's $14. It may not offer answers, but it will offer style and slight protection from the elements. These days, that's all one can expect from a t-shirt.

That is, unless you buy the shirt and the MP3 version of the album for $19. The t-shirt will arrive via mail, the MP3 via your email within 30 minutes of purchase. Both will enlighten, but we make no guarantees. Click here to give it a shot.

ROBERTO LANGE COLLABORATES WITH NENE HUMPHREY

Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

On display this Saturday in Brooklyn is a collaborative video and live performance from artist Nene Humphrey. Roberto Lange, aka Helado Negro and Epstein, worked extensively with Nene on the music composition, partnering also with songwriter and performer Julie DeLano and cinematographer Christopher Keohane.

In what began as a meditation on the loss of her husband, Nene Humphrey layers sound, film and live performance in the piece she is calling Circling the Center. Images of electrical circuit boards, animated MRI's, braiding weaving patterns and a 19th century papier maiche brain model are layered with the sounds of rats serenading each other in a neuroscience lab, human breathing, a metronome and the chanted directions for crafting Victorian mourning braids, creating a film projected on a large scrim. Three women behind and in front of the scrim perform an original vocal dance piece at selected intervals.

The video performance is at 7pm, Saturday May 21st. More details are here.

NEW ALBUM FROM HELADO NEGRO OUT TODAY

Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Canta Lechuza, the second album from Helado Negro, is out today. It is a perfect album for spring; majestic but at the same time welcoming, the music bubbling forth like little green shoots out of black dirt. Canta Lechuza is pop music for sure, but this is Helado Negro, right? He'll never force his way in with over-you-head beats. His riffs are subtle and suave. A wink here, a wave there. You will be charmed as we have. The album is so good, we are listening to it right now as we pen the very news you read.

If we can be so bold, we recommend you do the same and listen. It's been a while since you just relaxed and listened, isn't it? See below for a full, free stream, or click here.

And if you like what you hear, do buy it. It's $8 for the MP3, $10 for the CD and $15 for the LP. Click here to buy.

Canta Lechuza by Helado Negro

HELADO NEGRO ON RECORD AT UNION POOL [VIDEO]

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

William "Zoe" Fitzgerald of Flatblooded Productions created this lovely live video of Helado Negro in the band's new live configuration at Union Pool in Brooklyn. It is a fuzzy video, but we think you'll get the general idea.

Helado Negro have a couple tour dates coming up with saxagenius Montreal-based Colin Stetson and a record release show with our own Julianna Barwick. See here for more details.

Unrelated historical trivia: Liz Janes and temporal vessel of Future Rapper celebrated their east coast wedding reception at Union Pool. Now you know.

EVE SUSSMAN AND THE RUFUS CORPORATION IN LONDON

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Helado Negro's Canta Lechuza features the amazing vision and photography of world renown filmmaker and photographer Eve Sussman. It is an honor to have her join the ranks of our talented pool of album artists. Eve's new collaborative group, the Rufus Corporation launched whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir this last weekend at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London. For those of you on that side of the pond the show runs until May 14th. More information here.

HELADO NEGRO ON BENEFIT COMP FOR JAPAN

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Helado Negro's "Cabeza Bella" is the second track on Benefit for the Recovery of Japan, a mammoth but brilliantly curated compilation featuring the likes of Fennesz, Akron/Family, Tape, Prefuse 73, Tim Hecker, Sam Prekop, and band members from TV on the Radio, Deerhunter, and many, many others. The quality and breadth of the compilation's artists, and the efficiency record label Antopic demonstrated in putting this together is really something. The comp is a testament of the way people from across the globe can come together and help in time of need. All proceeds go to the Civic Force in Japan.

We highly recommend you purchasing the compilation here for $15.

HELADO NEGRO TOURING WEST COAST

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400

In a couple months, we'll get to release Canta Lechuza from Helado Negro, aka Roberto Lange. It's good, good stuff. You can likely hear it as early as we have if you manage catch him on tour; an easy thing in the next couple of weeks if you reside on the west coast. Roberto's traveled all the way from Brooklyn to tourmates o'death to catch some early sun - and say hello. Details here.

ROBERTO LANGE AND DAVID ELLIS MAKE TRASH SING

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400

Our ever prolific Roberto Lange (Epstein and Helado Negro) has produced another amazing kinetic sculpture with artist David Ellis. Enjoy!